Assessing the sustainability of something is tricky if you’re a consumer. We usually rely on our supermarket or the labels and text on the packaging to decide if something’s sustainable.
Or we don’t even think about it.
It’s not our fault. Measuring sustainability takes a lot of data, a lot of statistics, and at least one degree. And even then, researchers often fall short of completely assessing ALL the variables that go into sustainability.
This type of research is called Lifecycle Assessment (LCA for short).
“Life cycle assessment is a cradle-to-grave or cradle-to-cradle analysis technique to assess environmental impacts associated with all the stages of a product’s life, which is from raw material extraction through materials processing, manufacture, distribution, and use.”
ScienceDirect.com
Certain researchers dedicate their entire careers to conducting LCAs. LCAs are critical for assessing the sustainability of a product, and allows us to assess which products are more “sustainable” than other products, allowing us to make consumption choices than have less impact on the world.
Here are just a handful of variables that researchers consider when analysing the environmental impact (or sustainability) of a product:
- Greenhouse gas emissions
- electricity use
- distance from farm to consumer (impacts of transportation)
- Deforestation
- Impact on land & water
- impact on soil & water health (salinization, desalinization, acidification, eutrophication, microbial content, chemical content, trubidity)
- use of fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, and other chemicals
- water usage (total use and unrecycled use)
- use of antibiotics
- Habitat loss & impacts on biodiversity
- Sustainability of Inputs (feed, chemicals, seed)
- Where does the inputs come from? What’s it made of? Where does the equipment come from?
- Productivity
- Yields per area
- Quantity of edible yield (how much of the product is actually consumable? For example, shrimp shells will generally be wasted by British consumers)
- Packaging
- Can it be recycled? What’s it made of? Where does it come from?
Sustainability is important yet intricate.
If you want to make sustainable seafood choices, check out this article.
Fish By The Pounds 